


Et Tu, Evan?

by howboutinotdothis



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, im just practicing how to write connor/evan interaction, not even joking, that's it that's the story, they go to a grocery store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 06:44:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10431471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howboutinotdothis/pseuds/howboutinotdothis
Summary: Zoe and Connor argue over which type of milk is superior while Evan tries not to run over people with his shopping cart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Buggies are what I call shopping carts if that's abnormal idk bruh i;m tired
> 
> Zoe and Connor have a better relationship in this because they've had years of healing, family counselling, etc. Evan's social anxiety is still hard af to deal with but now he has bros who look out for him so that's cool
> 
> pls leave comments/kudos/criticism or whatever because I need feedback on whether I'm writing Connor right

Evan stares blankly at the cans of tomato soup, trying to act like he’s really very interested in the different brands of tomato soup and not like he’s desperately waiting for the young mother in front of him in the aisle to move so he can get around her. She’s been reading the ingredients on a box of spaghetti for what feels like an eternity and Evan can’t imagine what ingredient in spaghetti could be so offensive that it would require five minutes of intense scrutiny and affronted grumbling.

A couple suddenly pushes past Evan, forcing him to press up against the shelves of tomato soup, and he can honestly say he wasn’t expecting today to lead him to gaining an intimate knowledge of what cans of tomato soup feel like against his arm. _In and out_ , he told himself. _It’ll be fine._

Except it wasn’t fine because it’s _never_ fine, and now Evan is panting like he just ran a mile in the middle of the soup and sauces aisle in the grocery store. He really wanted to go to Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market—all of those have self-checkouts and you don’t have to talk to _anybody_ at self-checkouts unless you mess something up and Evan takes special care to not mess things up. He’s sure the lady that presides over the self-checkouts is perfectly nice, but even the sweetest people can only tolerate his stuttering and stumbling for so long.

Anyways, Evan didn’t get a choice in where he was going to buy groceries because Zoe and Connor wanted to go to Publix and he wasn’t going to say “oh, no, it’s fine guys I just suddenly realized I don’t need food and I’m not out of bread” or “I would rather starve to death than make small talk with a cashier, please can we go somewhere I can act like a hermit.” Evan can distantly hear them a few aisles over, fighting over whether they should get almond milk or soy milk or, like, real milk.

Honestly, Evan should have just stuck by them instead of going off on his own like the complete _idiot_ he is, but he really needed more tomato sauce because he ran out of tomato sauce two weeks ago and he has a whole box of spaghetti left and he can’t exactly eat spaghetti without tomato sauce, can he? Well, he could, and he has, but Evan’s been trying to not eat stuff he doesn’t want to in order to avoid social situations. Dr. Sherman says that avoidance is a poor coping mechanism and that the only way to grow accustomed to social situations is to expose yourself to new social situations so you can come to the realization that talking to strangers isn’t that bad.

Except talking to strangers _is_ that bad. It’s awful—and people just keep _talking_ to him. Old ladies keep making eye contact and saying hello, little kids have been waving at him from their buggies, and an employee saw him looking at the Gatorade whilst contemplating how his life has come to this point and asked if he needed help. And Evan does need help, just not the kind of help that employee could provide.

His hands are slippery with sweat when he gets to the jars of tomato sauce, so he rubs his hands on his pants a couple times before grabbing a jar off the shelf and placing it carefully in his buggy. Evan is seriously regretting grabbing a buggy—it makes it a lot harder to keep his head down and quickly walk around people. He’s almost pushed his buggy into someone coming around the corner a few times now and he _can’t do that_ —he’d have to apologize and then he’d do something spectacularly stupid and just make everything worse and then he’d probably run out of the store and text Jared to get him because he won’t be able to face Connor and Zoe if he makes a scene in a _Publix_. I mean, who makes a scene at Publix? Nobody. Nobody does anything dramatic at Publix because people who go to Publix aren’t crazy.

Evan’s starting to think he might be the exception to that rule.

He pushes his buggy past the potatoes, which he needs some of, but they’re just sitting there, a bunch of free potatoes in a big bin for people to grab as they please, not pre-packaged in a convenient plastic bag. Evan has yet to spot the bags you use for the fresh vegetables and he is _not_ going to juggle a bunch of potatoes or drop a potato or just generally wreak havoc on the potatoes. He can just get Jared to give him a ride to Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market next weekend where he can buy himself a big bag of potatoes and avoid interaction with other human beings.

Evan’s hunched over, awkwardly passing through the feminine hygiene section because he’s pretty positive there isn’t a way to pass through the feminine hygiene section that isn’t awkward. It would be weird to look at the various tampons and pads and lines, but it’s also weird to stare at the floor and turn red in the face, and he can’t really think of a middle ground reaction. Evan could look at the shelves across from the feminine hygiene products, but then he would be very obviously not looking at the feminine hygiene products, and is it—is it like _insulting_ to not want to look at the feminine hygiene section or something? He has no idea, and he can’t exactly ask Zoe or Alana “hey do girls get pissed if you try really hard not to look at tampons” because that’s really weird. That’s next level weird, and Evan doesn’t need to be any weirder than he already is, thank you very much.

Suddenly, an arm is flung around his shoulder and Evan lets out a squeak. He was too wrapped up in his inner monologue to notice Zoe approaching him, Connor following behind with a buggy full of groceries that, Evan notices, contains two cartons of almond milk. So Zoe won that argument.

“You good, Evan?”

“Um, y-yeah, why wouldn’t—why wouldn’t I be good? I’m—I’m so good. Really.”

Zoe frowns at him, entirely unconvinced, and Evan is probably going to have a mental breakdown if she asks him what’s wrong. He’s honestly a half-second away from freaking out just because her arm is still around him—he loves Zoe, he _does_ , he thinks Zoe’s one of the best people he’s ever met, but he just cannot handle physical contact right now. It makes him want to scream. It’s just—everything is _too much_ and he needs to not be here and he needs Zoe and Connor to not be looking at him like they think he’s about to start sobbing beside the mouthwash section.

“Okay,” Zoe says, kind of quiet like she’s trying to calm him down a little. “Ready to check out?”

Evan doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods jerkily and keeps his gaze trained on the ground, not wanting to see the expressions on their faces. _God_ , can’t he function like a normal human being for one afternoon? Why does Evan always have to ruin everything—like this was just supposed to be a fun trip to the grocery store. A fun trip to the grocery store! That’s it! And he can’t handle it! It’s ridiculous.

Zoe moves around Evan and Connor comes up to stand beside Evan, narrowly avoiding hitting their buggies together. “You know, we could just ditch Zoe with all the groceries, run to the car, and do a couple circles around the block to piss her off.”

The mental image of Zoe chasing after the car and shaking her fist at them is enough to make Evan snort. She would probably ignore both of them for the whole ride back to the apartment and then Evan would offer her a bite of his Chunky Monkey and she’d eat half the carton and forgive him. Not Connor though. She wouldn’t forgive Connor until he offered to pay for the three of them to go see a movie, snacks and gas money included. She’d order a whole meal to piss him off and then they’d spend the entirety of the previews arguing about something stupid. Evan’s happy their arguments have steadily become less aggressive so now it’s only a little more intense than the usual sibling bickering. He hasn’t had to deal with a supremely upset Zoe after Connor said something devastating in a month, at least.

“I don’t,” Evan takes a steadying breath. “I don’t think Zoe would appreciate that.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

Evan chuckles and Connor smiles a little bit and it’s—it’s better. It’s not _good_ , but it’s better. And that’s enough.

Connor knocks his shoulder into Evan’s before moving in front of him and Evan follows behind, smiling when Zoe gives Connor shit for taking so long to get to the register. Zoe engages the cashier in a rousing conversation about the weather while Connor carelessly lays things out on the conveyor belt, overturning a container of pastries so that the icing migrates from the food to the plastic lid. Connor puts one of those divider sticks between his and Evan’s groceries before helping Evan unload his buggy, giving Evan a betrayed look when he picks up the carton of almond milk Evan grabbed. “Et tu, Evan?”

Zoe distracts the cashier throughout both of the purchases, so Evan doesn’t have to say anything besides a quick “thank you” when the woman hands him his change.

The bag boy doesn’t bother trying to grab Evan’s car after receiving a glare from Connor when he tried to take his, which is really nice, because Evan is particularly bad at saying no, and he wouldn’t be able to handle the casual chatter required to walk to the car with the bag boy. Evan lets Zoe take his buggy so she can hop up on the lower basket and skate through the automatic doors, somehow managing to navigate her way through the parking lot on the buggy without running into a car or falling off. Evan keeps pace with Connor, who seems to be in no hurry to get to the car, and the quiet between them is nice. With Zoe, Evan always feels like he has to talk, which he knows Zoe doesn’t expect from him, but Zoe’s so nice and so easy to talk to and Evan really likes Zoe so he doesn’t want her to think he doesn’t care or that he’s not fun or something. It’s different with Connor.

A lot of stuff is different with Connor.

Zoe’s waiting at the trunk of the SUV their parents gifted them when their mom got some eco-friendly hybrid a few years back, holding the carton of almond milk up like Connor had, looking entirely too proud of herself. “See, Connor, your boyfriend agrees that almond milk is superior to all other milk. Why can’t you be more like Evan?”

“I bet Evan only got that crap because you peer pressured him into getting it.”

“No way! Evan made this decision independently; I don’t meddle in other people’s milk-buying process.”

“You were bitching about me getting soy milk last time the whole way here. He was literally in the car for all of that.”

Evan starts unloading the groceries into the trunk while the other two argue over whether Zoe influenced Evan’s purchase or not. In all honesty, he just grabbed the milk closest to him and bolted from the aisle because he accidentally made eye contact with an old guy and the old guy frowned at him and he didn’t want his presence to ruin that old guy’s shopping experience.

Evan carefully organizes the groceries so his are on the left and the Murphys’ are on the right, which he knows is pointless because Zoe will undoubtedly force him to take a few bags of groceries she bought specifically for him, acting like it’s no big deal and insisting that it’s “what friends do.” Jared and Alana certainly never by him groceries, but Evan stopped bringing that up after the first couple times. He’s learned to just accept this custom as Zoe being Zoe. (And as Connor being Connor because he has gotten stuff multiple times that only Connor knew he liked, but Connor doesn’t like taking credit for that kind of thing.)

Once the groceries are all in the trunk, Zoe takes the buggies back to the corral after telling Evan to not let Connor be a dick and strand her in a Publix parking lot. Connor rolls his eyes, but doesn’t start the car when he slides into the driver’s seat and Evan clambers into the passenger seat. Evan’s been in that seat about a thousand times over the past few months and he has still yet to perfect getting into it without a) looking like a baby giraffe in roller skates, b) hitting his head on the roof off the car, or c) banging some body part against the dashboard. The step up into the SUV is just too high, in his opinion.

Connor folds his arms on top of the steering wheel, leaning forward and resting his chin on his arms and looking out the window, looking as amazing as Connor always looks. Connor’s just—he’s just _amazing_ , you know? Like, yeah, he’s mean and angry sometimes and he can’t let anything go when he’s upset—he’s the master of twisting your words into something that is the exact opposite of what you intended—and he’ll go off the grid for a whole week and then just reappear and refuse to talk about where exactly he’s been hiding for the past week and, when he’s angry or hurt, he says some pretty awful things, but he also always knows what to say when Evan is freaking out and he always makes sure Zoe gets Evan those stupid tree cake things because they make Evan smile and he doesn’t push Evan to be anything he’s not and he makes Evan feel—well, not normal, not exactly, but something close to it. He makes Evan feel like maybe one day he can walk into a Publix and smile at old ladies and talk to the cashier and let the bag boy help him unload his groceries. He makes him feel like things will get better. Not soon, but eventually.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Connor mumbles, giving Evan the side-eye for staring.

“Sorry,” Evan says, but he’s not really sorry and Connor knows that, so he huffs a little because he’s Connor and he can’t make it obvious that he likes when Evan looks at him like that.

Zoe returns, sliding into the back seat and hitting the back of Connor’s seat, and Connor glares at Zoe in the rearview mirror. He is without a doubt going to slam on his breaks hard on the way back to the apartment so that Zoe faceplants in the back of his seat and Zoe will know it’s coming because he always puts his arm across Evan to make sure he doesn’t hit his face on the dashboard because that would really take the fun out of things. Evan rarely gets minor injuries—he basically either gets a broken nose or nothing, and Connor is _not_ going to accidentally break his boyfriend’s nose. Again.

Connor backs out of the parking space without incurring any casualties and, once they’re on the road, he puts his hand on the gearshift. Rests it there, casually. Evan puts his hand on the edge of his seat, palm up. Connor’s hand slides off the gearshift, landing on top of Evan’s hand, and Evan threads their fingers together, trying—and failing—to not smile like a dork.

“That’s gay,” Zoe says, making her voice a little deeper in what she calls her “Jared impression.” Evan laughs and Connor smiles a little and Zoe’s giggling at her own joke and it’s one of those perfect moments where everyone is happy and Evan is calm and life is good.

So. Maybe going to Publix isn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thanx for reading! hope you enjoyed! pls tell me if there's a glaring error because I didn't proofread this becase im tired k thanx bye


End file.
